Man, do you remember that initial feeling of ESO?

Varana

Yes, I remember it.
It's why I quit the game for a few years.

Synnastix

Standing in line to complete a quest in Reapers March.

Naked jumping in Coldharbour to light braziers.

Harvesters that wrecked your day.

Daedric motif selling for 100k

Thinking playing a paladin was a viable choice as a templar.

Occasional subscription loyalty rewards.

No craft bag. No group finder. No NPC hirelings to bank for you. No blade of woe. No justice system.

Good times.

Khenarthi

I loved not knowing my way around and exploring the maps for the first time. We still get expansions occasionally but those first couple of months were magical.

vibeborn

I only started playing last year so I never got to experience that golden age of the first years. Instead I've chosen to experience my own golden age in the game.

I remember being thrown back by how good the game looked, because all other mmos I had seen pictures or videos of didn't really appeal to me. It was also the first time I ever got into an Elder Scrolls game, so obviously there was a lot of lore that I needed to discover (and still do, as I have yet to play any of the single player games)

svartorn

Gravord wrote: »

Lag free Cyrodiil, back in beta and early launch, before they start messing it up. Now its not even quarter of that population cap, torchbugs and most animals was removed and it still works worse now:

Ahhhhh.

That brings back memories. It seems so distant.

Blinkin8r

svartorn wrote: »

Gravord wrote: »

Lag free Cyrodiil, back in beta and early launch, before they start messing it up. Now its not even quarter of that population cap, torchbugs and most animals was removed and it still works worse now:

Ahhhhh.

That brings back memories. It seems so distant.

Wow, sad to think some players will never know what this game was.

Valgar0r

ESO PVP 2014

Syrusthevirus187

Same. I miss cyrodil. These days I lag out in a 10v10 keep fight and just turn the game off.

Syrusthevirus187

Plus I can only play 1/3 of my characters in the only campaign where those 10 players are. Fun.

geonsocal

I very clearly remember my first impression upon arriving in daggerfall - who the *** are all these other people running around inside my game (my first mmorpg)...

regime211

Kaunas wrote: »

Im still living it. 700 hours so far, cp600 or something, still tons of content. The event that got me by surprise was IC, where i fell in love with the sewers and had groups going 20v20 at molag. That was amazing. Yeah servers are in a hilarious state, but i still smell the nirnroot and stray away from people who like to complain more than actually play or just leave.

Nerd cuh

Vahrokh

ESO in 2014 aka "ESO Classic": a number of bugs and server issues, but TRULY AWESOME.

ESO in 2019 aka "ESO BFA": a number of bugs and server issues, and it's gameplay sucks, races don't have relevant bonuses, skills have been nerfed and streamlined into an endless sea of boredom.

Goregrinder

Yeah I remember, Beta 2013. My initial feeling was " Ah so is this what an Elder Scrolls game is like?..." Then my initial feeling when I stepped foot in Cyrodiil for the first time was " Duuude...this is Planetside 2 and DAoC...but with horses...brooooo this is lit!". Good times.

craybest

i didn't like the game at all at first, everything felt... grey and soulless...
but with each new year and new dlc, the game gets bigger and better. now it's one of my favorite MMOs

AndyMac

My initial feeling was that I was very unhappy that the only new Elder Scrolls content around was an MMO.

Only the sentence - “there’s plenty of content for solo players” got me signed up for the mega server stress tests in 2014 and then buying the game.

I purposely went in blind - no guides, no websites, no nothing.

I had a lot of fun the first few months, exploring, levelling, figuring everything out and doing the main quest. I also died quite a lot ha ha - overland was legit hard in places back then for a new player.

Slowly got into groups and guilds and found they can actually add a lot to a game experience.

Through good patches and bad patches, this has been my go to video game ever since

oXI_Viper_IXo

Guyle

Getting profanities whispered to me and yelled at in Coldharbor because I was apparently interfering with someone elses exp farm. Freaking out when another player sat there shooting light attacks from his staff at me where I couldnt see them and thinking I was being attacked.

AcadianPaladin

My initial feelings in ESO were similar to those inspired by other games - overwhelmed, confused, awkwardness while trying to learn how things worked, too distracted by learning the game to fully notice the music, landscape, graphics etc.

After a time though, that faded and I grew comfortable in the game. I believe the first time this really hit me was when fighting a world boss and, for the first time, being comfortable enough to pay attention to the beautiful combat music. Increasing comfort and skill in the game has enabled me to much more fully appreciate its beauty and atmosphere.

So it was with Oblivion and Skyrim for me. The difference in ESO is that the mass and scale in ESO is such that, after a few thousand hours of play, I see no sign of ever 'outgrowing' it. With so many zones and places to explore, by the time I get back to where I've been it feels new again.

As primarily a soloist who prefers single player, my biggest frustration with this wonderful game has been having skills that I'm comfortable with and enjoy getting nerfed. My solution has been to retreat even further into solo play and to have numerous variants of my character so when I get frustrated by nerfs that undermine a class, I can play her as another class until the next round of nerfs.

During the three years I've been playing, I still find all the original zones and quests more enjoyable than any of the DLC. Overall, I'd say the game has taken 10 steps forward and perhaps 9 steps back while I've been playing. I still find it very enjoyable.

zaria

vamp_emily wrote: »

My initial feeling was not a good one.

When I made it out of the prison and landed in Daggerfalls, I was amazed that all the characters were RL players. Then a few minutes later ( when I was trying to figure how to use my keyboard to move and fight ) I hit a guard. The guard would not leave me alone, he wanted gold I did not have and kept killing me. I told my friend that I would never play again, and she gave me some gold to pay my bounty. However, my bounty went up and the guard kept killing me. I ended up logging out and not expecting to ever play gain.

That was in 2014 and i'm still here.

My initial feeling was very good, did not have high expectations, had played WOW and a couple other MMO and knew the limitations of the platform.
But then I came to Khenarthis Roost it felt like an TES game.
My only complain was that jumping in ESO feel clunky compared to Skyrim or fallout.

The weirdest thing was at the staring fort it was lots of players around the quest giver, but then you enter the dialogue with the quest giver the players are invisible. However all the pre order monkey pets was visible, forgot to take a screenshot.

nickl413

I hated the game initially, didnt like the combat or the crafting interface and Stone Falls was so dreary. Basically, it wasnt Skyrim. I also didnt like having to pay a subscription to play right after dropping 60 bucks for the game. I only played for a few hours. Fast forward 1 year; For nostalgia's sake, I decided to go see what they did with the Skyrim area. I walked all the way from davon's watch trying to get to Whiterun lol. At level 6ish vs lvl 35+ mobs, I died a lot. And I went over the same areas a lot until I figured out what a wayshrine does, and then started aiming for those when they pop up on the compass (no add-ons yet) I ended up exploring all of The Rift and Eastmarch and I thought those areas were super cool and it was a fun journey that got me interested in the game.

xxthir13enxx

Those were the days my friend
We thought they'd never end
We'd sing and dance forever and a day
We'd live the life we choose
We'd fight and never lose
For we were young and sure to have our way
Da daa daa daa da...

Ragged_Claw

2014: Deciding at level 9 that I HAD to be a vampire and walking all the way from Auridon to Reaper's March to find vampire spawns only to be killed by level 30 skeevers. (Had no idea I could port to a guild mate) I finally made it and got very lucky (a lovely player showed me where to look) with a spawn by Dune Wayshrine, but then I was waaay underlevelled to do the quest, didn't manage until I'd levelled up more anyway. Spending weeks in the daggerfall bank looting because I need the Daedric motif to go with my new vampirism and someone told me the drop rate was higher there

Not being able to kill Molag Bal, because big fiery death attack kept killing me (vampire ofc), until a kindly player crafted me some rings of resist fire, which I keep to this day.

I was utterly clueless about everything, I was V10 before I realised that I wasn't actually doing any damage (I was a DPS) and that I should learn a bit about, you know, everything.

The broken quests, omg, waiting for Telenger the Artificer to do his thing and everyone doing the /hammer emote on him. Ah those were the days.

Vhozek

FinneganFroth wrote: »

In light of today's events (or lack of), I figured I'd go back to my first exposure to ESO to see what I thought now. They did a great job advertising this game, that's all I'm saying.

Three friends of mine and I were dying when this game was announced and we all said "I'm going to play this religiously".
Only I play it now and not because I absolutely like it but because I'm still trying to push for ideas that could spark enough conversation to make my friends play this, even if just a little bit.

akdave0

call me weird, but after my sorc was deemed no longer useful. I rolled a new toon. I did the main quest from start to finish again, and man, it was awesome. Things I had forgotten, things I did remember, the whole coldharbour quest was just great. Imbued with the powers of my friends, kicking the crap out of Molag Bal and his minions in God-mode was such a wonderful time. Then doing Cadwells silver/gold was a reminder why I started to love this game. Good times.

Vhozek

eovogtb16_ESO wrote: »

I loved how difficult the game was before one tamriel. I loved how smooth 100v100v100 battles were before one tamriel. I loved everything before one tamriel. I mean it's still good and there were issues too back then but it definitely didn't feel as broken as it does today.

You had 100vs100vs100?
What?
What the hell did One Tamriel do to the game?

Vahrokh

Vhozek wrote: »

eovogtb16_ESO wrote: »

I loved how difficult the game was before one tamriel. I loved how smooth 100v100v100 battles were before one tamriel. I loved everything before one tamriel. I mean it's still good and there were issues too back then but it definitely didn't feel as broken as it does today.

You had 100vs100vs100?
What?
What the hell did One Tamriel do to the game?

We REALLY had almost DAoC / Warhammer RvR. After all, they hired some game developers from the company that made those awesome PvP MMOs. Epically huge, battles, free of lag. Guild (100 people) vs other guild or zerg.

But we cannot have something good last forever. Some players found ways to hack the ESO client to do all sort of cheats so ZOS had to move most of the spells, skills and positioning code on the server. Result: the disaster you see today.

Synnastix

First time I equipped a healing staff I had no idea how to use it. I thought I had to attack friendlies to heal with it, didn’t know there were skills associated.

SydneyGrey

When I first started I had no idea how to join a guild, and had no friends who played, so I walked everywhere. It took forever for me to even get out of Glenumbra. I did every single quest.

The first time I ever saw Wayrest I thought it looked amazing. Now the cities in the DLCs look even better than the original cities did.

The first time I ever saw a frost mare mount, I thought it was the coolest (LOL) thing I'd ever seen.

CaffeinatedMayhem

Ah yes - "what do you mean I have to leave the road??? That will be 20 mintues of killing stuff just to get to a quest!"
Or "Why is everything so broken?" "Why is DK so OP?" "dang why do I have to sit here and yell in zone chat to run a dungeon." Or better yet - 8 hour weekly maintenance. Or multi-day maintenance.

Oh, my friend just joined... oops, can't play with them. What do you mean I have to grind all new gear now that I'm VR12 instead of VR10?

Yes, so wonderful... nostalgia is a hell of a drug.

Taleof2Cities

Screenshot from April 8th 2014: